A number of interesting announcements from Microsoft recently that seems to allude at the giant more explicitly returning to one of its earlier principles, ‘everyone gets a piece of the pie’ and by extension with have more pieces of the pie form which to monetise.

When MS was an application company, they had an interpreter that would run their applications on the target platform. So msword.com was actually the ‘loader’ for the interpreter and the subsequent code. One of the rationales was protection of the code from being decompiled, the other to minimise the code development. If there’s a new platform, just update the interpreter for the target OS/hardware. MS word was released for DOS and Xenix? using this interpreter?

I remember when COBOL support was in Windows 3.1 ? There were sample codes around that apparently worked for someone, but it never worked for me. And I remember trying to get some peoples Microsoft Pascal code to work with the GUI in OS/2? Don’t even think about what MS was trying to do with Fortran (geezz GUI programming in Fortran, let it die!!!)

Microsoft tried doing single source code for Excel between Windows and Mac OS, there was the attempt to get the Ruby/Access/VB Engine multiplatform between Windows/Mac OS. There was the Visual Studio cross platform development between Windows/Mac OS.

The Agnostic nature of the company has been more explicit recently with the Silverlight directions (i.e. it runs on Windows, MAC OS, Linux through mono, FreeBSD through …) and to some degree with the Dot NET framework.

When Live Space allowed external desktop blogging tools to update data on its service (i.e. so you can blog etc.) they used an adaptation of an existing ‘standard.’ But soon after Microsoft released another tool Windows Writer –> Windows Live Writer that not only allowed you to post to Microsoft sites and a few major sites but quickly grew to adopting most formats out there.

More importantly, the extensibility of Windows Live Writer meant that it soon had the capability to post and extract multimedia from a number of different services including flickr, youtube, msn soapbox.

Move forward into late 2008 and the embracing all, has thankfully extended to a number of tools.

Windows Live Photo Gallery now lets you push photos to Flickr, Picasa, smugmug, Facebook. There goes my interest in Picasa, which was really about it’s better integration with the online version than Photo Gallery.

Azureus to be supporting COBOL.

Microsoft has already shown it believes a new range of ‘developers’ exist with her Expression series of developer tools. The content developer has long ago extended, on the web, to the prolific web users. Making it easier for these users to create their content for the web (through their personal web sites, blogs) increases the use of your tools and platforms.

Now, the dilemma remains on how is this thing to be monetised?

My dad watched the Fiji –vs- Australia Semi Final game, and enjoyed himself.

The Rugby League World Cup is more Amco Cup than World Cup.

Tonight we were supposed to watch and enjoy a delayed broadcast of a semi final of the RLWC.

Read More… 

The Rugby League World Cup is a joke
LeftArmSpinner
Sun, 16 Nov 2008 21:24:25 GMT

I personally found it hard to comprehend what was the whole point of pitting a side of $100K professionals against part-time workers?

Oh yeah, the entertainment value of listening to those wonderful comments from broadcasters who begin the show by saying how much the Australian side have to be wary of the flamboyance to later turn around saying that “this is going to hurt.”

Oh yeah, and it really advances Rugby League in those minnow countries ? No. The last time Rugby League grew in Tonga was when the ARL and SuperLeague were throwing money around. How long ago was that ?

But if the US can have World Championships for sports only they play, who says we can’t hold similar moments of delirium.

Thinking out of the box, and greater experience always helps to finding short-cuts to getting that work done. In this case, the GBM team gives us tips on how to make it easier to access those Inking tools in the Microsoft Office suite.

The following is a re-post from an earlier article we published on customizing the Quick Access Toolbar so that the pen is easier to access in Office 2007:

One of the frustrating things about Office 2007 is how the inking tools are hidden under the Review Ribbon button. The ink options are harder to find, further sending the message that ink is a second-class citizen in Office products, and breaks that flow of “thinking in ink”. When I want to ink, I don’t want to hunt and peck for my pens. I just want to start inking.

…

Now you have one-click access to your pens and they are no longer hidden under the obscure “Review” tab. Unfortunately, the Editor Options do not apply system wide in Outlook. You’ll need to make the same changes to the Calendar, Contact, and Journal screens. Just create a new item for Calendar, Contact, and Journal, and then go to the Editor Options for each type to customize the Quick Access Toolbar. Follow the same instructions for customizing Word, Excel, etc.

GBM How To: Add Pen Options to Quick Access Toolbar
Rob Bushway
Mon, 10 Nov 2008 15:00:00 GMT

Now, all I need is a shortcut to keeping the battery in my mobile phone charged. (? whatever ?)

After church on Sunday we stopped over Uncle John’s house because we haven’t totally destroyed someone else’s house in a long time.

Now, we feel better so it’s time to go home.

Isn’t it sweet that the Australian Government would like everyone to realise that we hold the moral high ground.

Time to end Bush’s wretched war. (excerpt)

Yesterday, the Australian Government, via the Foreign Minister, Stephen Smith, reiterated its opposition to the death penalty. "We urge countries who continue to apply capital punishment not to do so," he told the ABC, adding that Australia would co-sponsor a resolution in the United Nations General Assembly calling for a moratorium on capital punishment.

Just as we hold the moral high ground on all those other International Treatise signed on the rights of children, or the rights of asylum seekers, after which we close the doors from any critics and go ahead and literally drive people to self-harm, suicide, mental illness.

But we are white, and white is might, so it must be right.

The Pacific Solution.

Feb 2008: As promised prior to the 2007 Federal Election, the ALP on assuming government, quickly moved to shut down the Australian-run detention centre on Nauru in the remote South Pacific. However, it has not withdrawn the controversial September 2001 legislation that created the offshore detention and processing system that came to be known as the 'Pacific Solution'. Instead of transferring asylum seekers en route to Australia to Nauru, it now transfers all asylum seekers to the detention centre on Christmas Island off Australia's far North-West coast. They still have have no rights under Australian law and are processed separately.

Oh, and they didn’t get the chance to enact a new legislation with greater powers similar to what allows the above ‘solution’ because those fool citizens didn’t give the ALP a majority in the Senate.

Commenting on the announcement, James Thomson, spokesperson for the National Council of Churches’ refugee program, which coordinated the statement, said that if it were not for the sustained pressure that churches and community brought to bear in the debate, and the pivitol role played by key parliamentarians who stood their ground against the Bill, it would have been passed.

Flight from Nauru ends Pacific Solution

"The Pacific solution was a cynical, costly and ultimately unsuccessful exercise introduced on the eve of a federal election (in 2001) by the Howard government," Senator Evans said.

He said the department had spent $289 million between September 2001 and June 2007 to run the Nauru and Manus centres.

Mark Getchell, from the International Organisation for Migration, which ran the Nauru facility, said there were now no asylum seekers left on Nauru.

"It is the end of an era," Mr Getchell said.

The United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) welcomed the end of the policy.

"Many bona fide refugees caught by the policy spent long periods of isolation, mental hardship and uncertainty - and prolonged separation from their families," UNHCR's Richard Towle said in a statement

Leave it to Dare Obasanjo to finally make a decent summary of what is the Windows Haze.

Disclaimer: What follows are my personal impressions from using the beta version of Windows Azure. It is not meant to be an official description of the project from Microsoft, you can find that here.

…

What is it?

Before talking about a cloud computing platform, it is useful to agree on definitions of the term cloud computing. Tim O'Reilly has an excellent post entitled Web 2.0 and Cloud Computing where he breaks the technologies typically described as cloud computing into three broad categories

…

To try out Azure you need to be running Windows Server 2008 or Windows Vista with a bunch of prerequisites you can get from running the Microsoft Web Platform installer.

…

…, I find the Live Services piece (access to user data in a uniform way) and the SQL Services (hosted storage) most interesting. I will likely revisit them in more depth at a later date.

…

It would be interesting to read [or write] further thoughts on the pros and cons of Platform as a Service offerings when compared to Utility Computing offerings. … it would be informative to look at the topic from more angles…

Windows Azure from a Developer's Perspective
Dare Obasanjo
Mon, 03 Nov 2008 10:04:04 GMT

Sometimes Microsoft can be at fault for not even understanding their own message, and then there are the times when even the fanboys and detractors just don’t have a clue.

The Free Press failed democracy in Australia when it kept silent and did not dig into the Howard Government exploitation of asylum seekers for political (let alone all the other nasties of that situation to maintain the facade), and it again looks to be failing Democracy. This time the failing is in the US Presidential elections where for some reason the ‘free press’ is conveniently forgetting the atrocities of this financial melt down brought forth by one candidate’s party politics.

Orson Scott Card, a noted author et. al. pulls the details in his treatise …

I  remember reading All the President's Men and thinking: That's journalism.  You do what it takes to get the truth and you lay it before the public, because the public has a right to know.

This housing crisis didn't come out of nowhere.  It was not a vague emanation of the evil Bush administration.

It was a direct result of the political decision, back in the late 1990s, to loosen the rules of lending so that home loans would be more accessible to poor people.  Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were authorized to approve risky loans.

What is a risky loan?  It's a loan that the recipient is likely not to be able to repay.

Seems similar to the existing two party system in Australia. One side has great economic nuance and atrocious concept of humanity, while the other side is all hugs and kisses and kiss economic stability goodbye.

There’s little worst in life than to live a lie and to be ignorant of it. It seems the ‘Free Press’ really isn’t that ‘free.’

From: Orson Scott Card, I love you.

For a light hearted fun flick:

http://alanbecker.deviantart.com/art/Animator-vs-Animation-34244097

If you want to really screw up things … you really have to be part of the largest institutes, and in most cases they happen to be national or multinational, including straight national states.

From the UK Telegraph.

The Department for Work and Pensions last year admitted that seven in 10 government IT projects fail.

So it is hardly surprising that progress on the NHS’s “Connecting for Health” computerisation scheme, already running at least four years late, has almost ground to a halt.

What is particularly concerning about this case, however, is its sheer cost - £12 billion.

All well to glorify the doom scenarios, but what can we do to find a solution? There’s a short ‘prescription’ in the above article. But, as it also ascribes things on paper don’t always become effective implementations.

As the most dangerous part of a car is the nut loose behind the wheel so is IT deployment. Fix the ‘nut’ and you’re more than half-way to your solution.

It looks like if you’re not moving to 64bit, then Microsoft is going to give you a gentile big shove.

Announcing Windows Server 2008 R2" href="http://www.activewin.com/awin/comments.asp?HeadlineIndex=45308">Announcing Windows Server 2008 R2

Oliver Rist: Windows Server 2008 R2 showed its pretty face at the Professional Developers Conference today, here in Los Angeles.

Hi there, my name’s Oliver Rist and I’m a new technical product manager on the Windows Server team. … pre-beta Windows Server 2008 R2. …, there are several items of note with R2:

First and foremost, 32-bit is done. History. Archives. Windows Server 2008 R2 is the first Windows OS platform to go 64-bit only, and frankly it was high time. Customers have been unable to purchase a 32-bit server CPU for over two years now, and the advancements in CPU architectures really dictated that we squeeze as much performance out of customers’ hardware purchases as possible. The move to 64-bit is a first step.

Announcing Windows Server 2008 R2
Wed, 29 Oct 2008 06:34:53 GMT

I’d go towards 64 bitness me-self except for that one little app that is the sole purpose of this machine (OneNote and OneNote print driver.)

I’d go 64bitness on my Ubuntu box, except that I downloaded the 32bit version and couldn’t be bothered after I finished the install (since it’s not a dev machine, it’s a *Nix word-process machine.)

But I probably would have bought the 64bit upgrade if Microsoft’s Upgrade site was anywhere easy to walk through. Windows Vista gives you a link to Upgrade Anytime, and the only place you get sent is trying to sell you a full version?

Looks like it’s Tonga week over at Cumberland Newspapers with news through again through Glenn Mitchell.

1st Up: Royal Touch from the Mt. Druitt Standard

King George Tupou V (left) enters the church grounds in traditional style. He is accompanied by an unidentified security official. Picture: ARMEN DEUSHIAN

MORE than 2000 people turned up at Glendenning last week to witness the official opening of a new $7.3 million church by the King of Tonga.

King George Tupou V ushered in a new era for the Australian-Tongan community when he opened the King Taufa’ahau Tupou IV Memorial Church.

Head on over to see the rest of the dialogue, including finding yourself in one of those kai polas?

2nd Up: Williams to fire up for Tonga from the Manly Daily, of all places?

Tonga's Tony Williams in action against Ireland on Monday night.

TONGAN World Cup coach Jim Dymock believes Sea Eagles 2009 recruit Tony Williams could be the “X-factor” in securing a win over rivals Samoa on Friday night. Williams will be named in Dymock’s 17-man squad on Wednesday.

I guess since William’s is running on for Manly next year, it’s appropriate that the locals there want to know what’s happening with their players (and we’re all ‘locals’ when it comes to news of the Tonga boys.

Local representation, national presence. Thanks to Cumberland Newspapers, so read you local daily/dairy.

p.s. I think they need to water-mark their photos, ‘cause we know how you young un’s love to share your favourite pics …

Shell Programming and Scripting

There’s always Google and Live Search, but the Shell Programming and Scripting forums look just like the place to wander around to learn more about that scripting environment called unix shell.

Looking back at a present past

Stuart was there at the onset of the consumer focussed Internet and brings us an interesting perspective of how the toolsets we now use evolved.

It was 10 years ago today that I first got involved with the Mozilla project.

As I once said: “I did, like, some random, like, little basic things.“

In the beginning…

It all started sometime in 1995 when I started running Linux.  Sometime over the next couple of years I decided to write a GUI email client.  Ironically, the only real option at the time was Netscape Communicator.  GTK+ and GNOME were both new and I decided to go with them as my toolkit of choice.  Eventually I ended up with the Balsa email client.  Through my journey with the Linux desktop I had gotten to know a number of people, including one Mike Shaver who at the time was at Netscape.

Stuart Parmenter: Ten Years
Thu, 23 Oct 2008 13:26:15 GMT

People easily forget that ‘today’ started off quite a long time ago and with quite a bit of sweat for some people.

Weather in Sydney is taking a Melbourne turn. We’ve had the coldest day of spring in aeons (or at least within the collective memory of the weather bugs) and it doesn’t feel like it’s getting any warmer.

They have this problem of a high percentage of asthmatics in Australia and a side of the medical profession believe that there a significant factor of the Australian lifestyle to the high rate of asthmatics.

We’re standing in the ‘smoker’s’ end of the station this cold morning, the wind is blowing a good chill factor. In our section is this cute little baby in her/his trolley standing with mum. There out here in the cold instead of being under the covers or behind the building from the wind because … good ol’ dad’s gotta have his smoko.

Way to go.

I was given this new book to read “Human Rights Overboard” it is a strange book to go through as it is part depressing, part encouraging, but wholly puts you into a zone of disbelief.

Unfortunately, for a title that could be ground-breaking expose (researched none-the-less) I walked into Dymocks (one of the major booksellers here) and the only way the Australian public are going to know about this work is if they already knew. (i.e. you have to special order.)

Human Rights Overboard BRISKMAN & GODDARD
Draws together, for the first time, the oral testimony and written submissions from the inquiry in a powerful and vital book that stands as an indelible record of one of Australia's bleakest legacies.

• ISBN

  9781921372407

• Format

  Paperback

• Category

• Publisher

• Imprint

• Pages

Online Price: $32.95

Add To Basket

Usually Ships in:
24 Hours

Fortunately, it seems that if you really do know about the book, then you can order it online (and get it faster than the guy walking into the shop.)

Should be required reading for all Tongans (in Tonga) dealing directly with Australian Government representatives. Should be required reading for senior church staff in Australia (of all denominations.)

Australia’s Postal Service … doesn’t make it easy to find out how you can track your Registered Mail services through their website and one is lead to believe that the only way to get information about the whereabouts of your registered mail is to walk into the post-office and ask at the counter.

Thanks to Capt. Habib @ WhirlPool Forums: Australia Post - Registered Post

If you have a consignment number you can track registered post here: www.ausposttracking.com.au

A little peace of mind, at zero additional cost.

Just make sure you see the counter person scan your parcel/package (whatever) b/c they scan it on the other side.

It’s amazing the simple things in life that can get people’s nickers in a knot.

After the web learned earlier this week that the final name of Vista's successor was Windows 7, all hell broke loose. The general consensus was that Windows 7 wasn't a bad name, but the reasoning behind it wasn't very clear. Many couldn't figure out how Microsoft had reached the number 7 (I'll give you a hint: they were looking at the kernel version number, instead of counting every single minor and major Windows release). But then others wanted to know why the current builds of Windows 7 were at kernel version 6.1, not 7.0.
Mike Nash, Corporate VP of Windows Product Management, chimed in again on the Windows Vista Team Blog with the official explanation:
"So we decided to ship the Windows 7 code as Windows 6.1 - which is what you will see in the actual version of the product in cmd.exe or computer properties. There's been some fodder about whether using 6.1 in the code is an indicator of the relevance of Windows 7. It is not. Windows 7 is a significant and evolutionary advancement of the client operating system. It is in every way a major effort in design, engineering, and innovation. The only thing to read into the code versioning is that we are absolutely committed to making sure application compatibility is optimized for our customers."
Read full story...

Final release of Windows 7 to have kernel version 6.1
Sicarius
Thu, 16 Oct 2008 14:31:37 GMT

The more amazing news is that there is still so much code out there in the world with seriously broken code like.

if ( major_version != X ) then
   exit

When was it were were told to write code that allowed you to write

if ( os.major_version < X ) then
   exit
if ( os.major_version > X ) then
  potential_compatability_warning

Maybe MS should ship with their SDK’s a switch to increment the os version during the debug sessions?

You really should read this.

The pen stirs creativity... maybe
A story making its way though the Tablet PC (http://www.jkontherun.com/2008/10/paper-and-penci.html) community (http://www.gottabemobile.com/Paper+And+Pen+Better+For+Your+Brain+Than+Software.aspx) this week concerns a doctoral thesis (http://en.scientificcommons.org/30004846) that concludes a user-friendly interface, such an icon- and menu-based computer system, inhibits problem solving performance, and interface designers should be mindful of the thin line between making a task easy and pushing a user to adopt a certain approach.
At least that's what I got out of it. I found the material too dense to boil down after a casual reading, so I focused on the conclusions. In my defense, I work for a scientific journal with a soft limit of 8 pages per article. Snacking on 8-page nuclear medicine articles (http://jnm.snmjournals.org/) all day is poor preparation for a 130-page psych banquet. But I digress...
Anyway, apparently the study found that an open-ended user interface, like pen and paper, was more mentally stimulating than a limited interface, like a modern computer graphical interface. Others have extended the theory to the pen-input system of the Tablet PC. I agree with the inference but only to a degree.
In the way you can freewrite on a screen, like pen on paper, the theory applies to the tablet. However, if you only use it to tap icons and input text, same as you would with mouse and keyboard, you're still bound by the icon and menu system. Thus, using pen input is not a liberating experience in itself. Rather, as with most things, it's how you use it.
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The pen stirs creativity... maybe
Sumocat
Tue, 07 Oct 2008 19:11:00 GMT

I finally moved my life over to a Tablet PC at the beginning of the year and am enjoying computing.

There are a number of things that are much faster with the keyboard than with the pen, but free form thinking is definitely a lot easier/freer with a clean sheet of paper and a pen.

On my Tablet PC, my paper is either Microsoft OneNote, or Microsoft InkSeine.

Game Over Man, Game Over ….

It looks like annoying flash has become a serious security threat.

But where does it leave the security bod out there trying to let people in their organisation use the Internet ?

Looks like a great opportunity for a security appliance border device between users and their web experience.

Net game turns PC into undercover surveillance zombie
Daniel Fleshbourne
Tue, 07 Oct 2008 18:17:02 GMT

Underscoring the severity of a new class of vulnerability known as clickjacking, a blogger has created a proof-of-concept game that uses a PC's video cam and microphone to secretly spy on the player. The demo, which is available here, appears to be a simple game that tests how quickly a user can click on a series of moving targets. Behind the scenes, it combines a generic clickjacking attack with weaknesses in Adobe's Flash technology to record the player using the PC's video camera and microphone.
The proof of concept is a powerful demonstration of the spooky implications behind clickjacking. The vulnerability allows malicious webmasters to control the links visitors click on. Once lured to a booby-trapped page, a user may think he's clicking on a link that leads to Google - when in fact it takes him to a money transfer page, a banner ad that's part of a click-fraud scheme, or any other destination the attacker chooses.
View: The full story @ The Reg
Read full story...